Monday, January 7, 2008

The Aims of BioShock: Shoddy Shooting

For a New Classical critic the degree to which a game’s formal elements promote its primary function is a measure of its success. Such a critic views all games through the lens of the principles found in Classical game design whether a game is made under a Classical or Western design. When approaching a New Classical critique of BioShock, I ran into a number of issues. Because Western designed games prioritize game-story and the overall “experience” over its gameplay and mechanics, I had to consider if a New Classical critique misses the core of such games? On the other hand, I had to consider if I had enough experience to critique BioShock’s experience or story otherwise. With games borrowing from various other mediums (books, music, theater, movies), wouldn’t assessing a game’s overall experience require at least a working knowledge of these fields? For the purposes of this essay, I will begin with a New Classical critique of BioShock, and then move into a more free discussion of my BioShock experience in relation to other mediums (books & movies).

Hacking. Examining. Shooting. Listening. Photographing. BioShock equips the player with a variety of actions. Being classified as a shooter, shooting is indeed the primary function in BioShock. For BioShock, shooting includes anything from unleashing plasmids, launching ballistics caught with telekinesis, striking targets with a wrench, and shooting any guns. Between splicers, security bots, security turrets, Big Daddys, and the final battle with Ryan, battle is where the player finds the most meaningful encounters in the game. Comparing the range of functions by frequency of use and necessity (what’s necessary to complete the game) the hierarchy of functions is as follows:

Shooting

Examining

Hacking

Photographing

Listening/Playing recordings

Now that the primary and subsidiary functions have been identified, I’ll examine how BioShock’s formal elements promote or demote shooting. Open sources of water, puddles of oil, chunks of ice, short circuited devices, security cameras, and security turrets are all designed to promote the use of specific plasmids: “Turrets can be hacked when they are unaware of you, or when Shocked or Frozen.” By shocking the water with the Electrobolt plasmid, players can electrify multiple enemies at once. Short circuited devices can be shocked into action. Puddles of oil can be ignited by using the incinerate plasmid to create a flaming barriers. Likewise, ice can be melted. And security cameras and turrets can be frozen or shocked to temporarily disable them. In a Classically designed game, these functions would be used throughout the game their combinations, frequency, and arrangement gradually increasing in complexity by creating new strategies and objectives by layering their simple functions. However, after the first few hours into the game, these formal elements either became obsolete shortly after their introduction (igniting oil), were rarely encountered (melting ice), or became a dominant strategy used in the majority of encounters (shocking cameras and turrets).

The enemies in BioShock function as dynamically moving targets that fight back, run away, and even use healing stations to repair battle wounds. Though some enemies have more obvious strategies to dispense of them with like using telekinesis against a Nitro splicers, BioShock fails to create situations that promote the use of a specific guns/plasmids by failing to offer any kind of consequence or punishment for doing otherwise. Just about any weapon out of your walking arsenal can be used on any enemy at any time. In this way, many of the functions of the plasmids and weapons overlap demoting the potential variety of weaponry. BioShock seems to have attempted to create an open world where the players aren’t restricted to having to complete a challenge in a specific way. However, by failing to promote the use of specific weapons/plasmids, there is no incentive for the player to deviate from a strategies that use a limited selection of weapons from their arsenal. In other words, BioShock isn’t structured to curb or alter some of the dominant strategies found early in the game. For the majority of splicers, the dominant strategy is strafe and shoot. For turrets, bots, and cameras the strategy is to zap and hack.

The Big Daddy encounters initially serve to break up the monotonous application of the existing dominant strategies. The Bid Daddy’s non scripted free roaming AI allows for them to show up just about anywhere you can go. Fighting one is much tougher than fighting a splicer because they feature a boost in defensive and offensive abilities. A simple “strafe and shoot” strategy or a “zap and slap” (electrobolt then wrench) doesn’t cut it. To topple these foes, players have to utilize their more powerful weapons and ammunition. Strategies like laying mines down in the Big Daddy’s path or using the Target Dummy plasmid require the player assess their enemies as well as their environment. I wouldn’t be surprised if most players find the Bid Daddy battles the highlights of the game as they represent the deepest combat (shooting) in the game. Unfortunately, the significance of the various plasmids and guns is demoted somewhat because of the function of the Vita-Chambers. Because these chambers take away the penalty of death from battle, the base level of play needed to overcome the majority of encounters in the game consists of “wrench, die, repeat.” This strategy revolves around the conservation of ammo instead of the efficient use of time.

The level design in BioShock functions more toward creating the dystopic setting of Rapture than an environment where the mechanics of shooting can be fully realized. With the Big Daddy’s roaming the halls and splicers scavenging through the corridors of their broken world in nearly every nook and crevasse, a battle can take place practically anywhere. Because Rapture was designed as a city (a series of open rooms and halls), most of the battles exist in open environments. You won’t find many objects to hide behind for cover. And even when you do, the enemies aren’t designed to recognize that you’re in cover. The splicers, security bots, turrets, and Bid Daddys attack the player in, more or lest, a direct-straight-line approach. When these enemies appear to be flanking the player or using any other kinds of battle tactics, it is merely the uncoordinated result of being attacked at once from many different sides. Even the few battles that are staged (Coen’s attack, defending Tenenbaum’s research facility, the magma room in Hepheastus, etc.) also take place in environments that lack adequate cover, visual flow, and physical flow that communicate the dynamics of power struggle from the changing positions between the player and enemy that are commonly found in shooter games.

Because the combat strategy isn’t very deep, there is a limit to how much the sound design of BioShock can support it. In other words, the sound design can’t create a level of depth that exceed the depth and involved in shooting (or any other function). The splashing sound from stepping into water alerts players that they’re standing in a puddle or pool which can lead into an electrobolt attack strategy. The foot steps on the ground or ceiling can communicate enemy position when their position isn’t visible. However, the soundscape often falls apart in the heat of battle when the environment, yelling enemies, gun/plasmid sounds, gun turrets, and audio recording all melt into a horribly unbalanced chaotic experience, which in itself is often reflective uninspired gallimaufry of combat mechanics.

A New Classical critic considers BioShock’s story and narrative elements to be inconsequential because they don’t effect “shooting” in a meaningful way. The vast majority of what Ryan, Atlas, Fontaine, Tenenbaum, or any other citizen of Ratpure says provides little information that shapes how you combat targets in the game. Thus the primary function is unsupported by the story. For that matter, the subsidiary functions are largely unaffected by the story of BioShock, because there are no consequences for excessively examining, hacking, taking photos, listening to recordings, or watching the world unfold around you. There are no drawbacks to examining and taking anything you find. The player only has strength to gain from excessively taking pictures of enemies. To cushion the consequence of not having film to complete the few objectives that require the player to take pictures, the game finds ways to supply the player with film before it’s necessary. Even when Ryan discourages hacking public vending machines, the player knows he/she can continue hacking away at any machine they can get close too because that’s what they’ve been doing since the beginning of the game: “It has been brought to my attention that some citizens have discovered ways to…hack the vending machines…Parasites will be punished.” What is necessary for beating the game isn’t that you’re helping to complete Coen’s masterpiece, but that you follow the golden arrow to the next enemy, photo-op, or object you have to examine so you can progress to the end of the game.

After reading that last paragraph you might be just about ready to dismiss my entire essay altogether. Am I actually suggesting that BioShock’s story and setting don’t matter to the game? In some ways, yes. But writing in a New Classical mode, my assessment of BioShock is limited to what works for the game (the actual interactive experience bound by rules, challenges, and consequences). This is why it was necessary to define the primary and subsidiary functions of BioShock. However, I would be doing this essay a great disservice if I didn’t address BioShock’s story or narrative from view point somewhat removed from the New Classical mode. Many swear by the depth, mature subject matter, and complexity of BioShock‘s story. Personally, I’m much more skeptical about “high concept” stories. As a writer, I’ve come across more than my fair share of overly ambitious stories filled with “deep” and complex ideas that ultimately fail because of poor execution. I’ve learned that part of understanding how to write a good story is understanding the strengths and limitations of the writing medium. “Show don’t tell” was a popular meme throughout the various workshops I attended. “Show don’t tell” means instead of telling us that character X went to the store and spent 5 minutes picking out bananas, it’s better to “show” or describe this character at the store standing in front of the crate of bananas with her arms crossed, her eyes darting back and forth relentlessly between two signs: organic 2.99/lb and yellow 2.89/lb. A proper description placed in scene (time and space) works wonders for the reader’s ability to visualize and absorb the story more naturally. But the gaming medium is inherently different, which brings up interesting issues.

Unlike passive mediums like books, music, and movies, videogames are interactive. “Show don’t tell” would more appropriately be replaced with “play don’t show” or even “play don’t tell.” This is why cut scenes are generally frowned upon. Back in the generation of Sony’s Playstation, cinematic cut-scenes where often spliced into games, particularly RPGs like Final Fantasy VII. These scene not only were graphical leaps beyond the blocky, jagged, polygonal models that the actual game used, but they often displayed daring feats of action packed heroics that the gameplay couldn’t match either. Now, our current generation of systems are powerful enough to push such graphics, and many of our leading developers are smart enough to make the most spectacular feats possible through simple and intuitive mechanics. Because of these two advancements in game design, cut scenes are becoming more and more obsolete. Ken Levine, creative director of BioShock, said himself that cut scenes were the “coward’s way out.” The New Classical critic believes the same tenets. For such a critic, it is better that the story elements in the game support the gameplay than merely coloring it, but it is best that the story is what the player plays. Of course, by play I mean meaningful interactions. Having the freedom to move your characters eyes or even walk around during “story parts” isn’t very meaningful (unless the game‘s primary function is looking/walking of course). For interaction rooted in subsidiary functions, the range of player control can easily fail to be meaningful and therefore detract from the effectiveness of the story telling. Furthermore, if there is no reaction or interaction between the player and elements or fictional computer controlled characters in the scene, then these story scenes are functionally passive. This is why a New Classical critic seeks to delineate exactly what ways a game’s story supports its primary function. Because the primary function is the driving mechanic of a game, it most likely will achieve meaningful interactions because of the consequences already built into the game. Bridging story and function in this way yields the highest chance of creating consequential and interactive story in a videogame.

So if BioShock story doesn’t support its game Classically, then how else can we consider it? I believe it is helpful to consider BioShock’s story in two parts: premise and narrative. The premise includes all the details and facts about Rapture that occur chronologically before the beginning of the game. The narrative includes all the new events and actions that the player prompts from progressing through the game. Considering these two parts of BioShock’s story, I’ll first consider BioShock’s story as if it were a book.

As a book, BioShock’s story falls for a few fiction writing “don’ts.” BioShock sets the story (premise) in the city of Rapture and describes this city through a series of audio recordings. When the player enters the game, their experience composes the narrative as they actively progress through the setting and events in the game. As for the recordings, they fail to show rapture. Rather, the majority of the recordings of the various characters literally tell the player what happened. BioShock is a game that excessively switches back and forth between what has happened in the past and what is going on in the present. This incessant switching is analogous to frequently using flash backs in fiction writing. Doing this not only weakens the readers sense of time and place within a story, but it also weakens the ability draw strong connections through scene, space, and time. In other words, it’s hard to achieve sound, and compelling story telling when the past (the context) is ostensibly given to you right before you need to know it. Examples include Suchong’s recording about the telekinesis plasmid; McDonagh’s recording about seeing ghosts; LangFord’s recording about how the thieves stole nearly everything from the office. Besides the examples of recording closely preceding their context within the narrative, the other recordings usually contain general information about Rapture that the player is responsible for filing away somewhere. When the story of the game punctuates the alternative experiences (the narrative), the player is left to organize things for themselves. During the course of the game, the player has to keep track of the narrative of their play experience, the bits of story that give immediate context to the next objectives, and the bigger picture of how Rapture fell. Managing these three stories would be hard enough in a book that‘s read linearly. But opens up the progression of listening to these recordings. The player must find the abandoned ACCU VOX personal recorders on their own. This feature practically destroys the chance of the player following an order to listening to these recordings if one existed.

I believe the main reason for shuffling these “flash back memory recordings” into the game was because BioShock exists between two mediums (at least for the purposes of this particular analysis). BioShock is a game that essentially sets characters in the middle of the climax of Rapture. By destroying Ryan and then Fontaine, the player is the prime participant in the great and violent coups of Rapture. Unfortunately, the entry point in the game had to be at such a high action point. Being place in a time where Rapture is rampant with splicers, Big Daddy’s, security bots, turrets, and other such dangers makes the game more interesting to play especially in the context of the shooter genre. However, starting the narrative where it does presents a problem. The players have to somehow understand the exposition, which traditionally contains more information and material than the climax. This simple flip-flop of structure creates a strain on the story telling in BioShock that the developers had to find a way around. Setting the game before Rapture went crazy can’t be played like a shooter. Guns weren’t even allowed during those times. Such a decision would have changed the entire genre. With the limitations set by the video game medium and the book medium, BioShock falls awkwardly in between.

Considering the story as a movie, BioShock also falls into awkward space for the same reasons that it failed as a book. The exposition had to be made up after the start of the game, and the intercalary recordings failed to show visually the expository events. Indeed the game contain rich settings powered by an acute artistic style. However, what makes the setting most interesting is that human hands created it. The drive, inspiration, purpose, and reason behind Raptures conception stems from the dastardly Ryan. Seeing the world makes us wonder what kind of man Ryan really is, and what kind of people could/would live in such a place. Yet, the scenes involved the sane human characters are all gimped or truncated in some manner. Tenenbaum speaks to the player from a balcony in their first encounter. Toward the end of the game, Tenebaum could be seen smoking peacefully behind tinted glass. Besides these brief moments, Tenebaum (like most of the characters) hid behind their voices via the recordings scattered throughout Rapture. The encounter with Langford was also behind a veil. When attempting to save Atlas’ family, Atlas could only be seen from far away. And when Fontaine went mad throwing around large heavy objects with his new found plasmid strength, he was little more than a darkened silhouette. The encounter with Ryan before his death, the two dancing splicers, and smaller moments from the events in Fort Frolic are better examples of film-like scenes. However, these scenes don’t balance out the amalgam of insufficient story telling elements.

In the end, BioShock isn’t much of a shooter, and it doesn’t have much of a story. Years of sweat, radical ideas, and good intentions fell apart in their execution much like Rapture did. Even if BioShock’s story can’t be considered as a book, movie, or a game in the terms that New Classical critics adhere to, it is useful to analyze BioShock from these angles. Ultimately, creating a mood and throwing in a bunch of ideas into a work without consideration of how they come together or how they’re executed is taking the easy way out rather than crafting a narrative that takes advantage of a particular medium. I’m not convinced that the execution (story) of BioShock is as good as anyone says. BioShock would have probably made a better book than a game.

6 comments:

Keep up the good work. I enjoy your articles allot. They are very true about the concepts and theories of games, I only wish the industry was aware of the issues you address and the video game medium matures. There would be much better games out there. I can't wait to read your thoughts on the other games you are analyzing and to hear your theories on home video games should be. It is obvious video games have allot of problems in design, concept, and execution. I wonder how you think this should be done and what games do you think execute themselves the best. Keep blogging.

Let me first of all say that, once again, you have done a fantastic job. Your essay's are some of the most brilliant video-game related writings I have ever read.

One thing you talk about in your essay is how information is given to the player right before s/he needs it. I'm not entirely sure I understand what the problem with this is. Could you please elaborate?

There's nothing "wrong" about it seeing how it gets the job done. However, it's certainly not the best way. What if you were reading a book or watching a movie where two people were fighting with swords to the death. Right before one cuts the other on the arm, you get a flash back. It's a flash back of when the two fighters were kids and it shows that they have a special "secret handshake" that they do by hitting each other on the arm with their fists.

Then the flash back is over, and the fighter hits the other on the arm with the flat side of the sword.

Of course the idea of maintaining a friendship bond even in a fight to the death is cool. However, story wise (and composition wise) everything was put together too neatly. It's as if the writer/movie maker thinks that we're too dumb to remember the flash back if it were placed at the beginning of the story. Giving the viewer time between important moments (like the fight and the flashback) allows the audience to reflect on the story in a more profound way.

Part of the reason why the non-flash-back method is so appealing is because of how we encounter stories in real life. Many times, as we get older, we suddenly think "OHH. That's why my dad made me learn how to change a flat tire. I was so mad at him then. But now I see that it was for my own good" This "ah ha" moment usually doesn't come right before we run over the nail int he middle of the road, but much later after we're home.

In this way, art reflects life. And ultimately, it's life that we're most attracted to.

Excellent work there kirbybird. As an English Literature student I've always thought that video games could be analysed in much the same way as other more accepted art forms. I remember playing Metal Gear Solid 2 when I was a young kid. The entire thing was over my head, but nevertheless I enjoyed the gameplay and the shallower, fun plot twists.

A wierd thing happened though. After passing my exams last summer I had a lot of free time on my hands, and I ended up replaying up Metal Gear Solid 2.

I was impressed with the storyline and ended up reading about it a lot on the internet. That's when I encountered the same idea that cropped up in a lot of critical essays that were written at the time - MGS2 is postmodernism... in a video game. Nothing prepared me for this but each essay outlined it pretty straightforward - Hideo Kojima had embarked on a bold and brave project to make one of the first games that might be recognised as art - not literary art, visual art or musical art... but gaming art.

And now I've stumbled upon your excellent website which shows me even further what I found with that original introduction. Good luck, keep up the excellent work and a quick question; do you accept reader submissions? ;)

"Just about any weapon out of your walking arsenal can be used on any enemy at any time."

This is so that all encounters can be conquered, even if you're out of ammo for one specific gun, the fact that any weapon can kill any enemy does not change the fact that it will become harder to kill the enemy with a weapon that is bad against it.

For the article in general, I do like the ideas expressed but believe that you can show and don't tell even with recordings scattered around by their exposition and by letting environmental elements take place in the recordings. To what extent bioshock does this is, well... it can be discussed, certainly. :)

Updated Critical-Glossary

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Critical-Glossary

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Alphabetical

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abstract mechanic

Some gameplay mechanics are completely artificial, meaning they do not make logical sense based on the form of the game. When such mechanics are privileged within a game's design, we tend to label these games as being "arcade" like. I describe these gameplay mechanics as being abstract.

It is a design innovation that applies to games that are played in real time. By taking the progression of real time and breaking it down in specific contextual ways, a new level of game design can be reached. This is the essence of asynchronous time, or async.

In music, Counterpoint is the writing of musical lines that sound different on their own, but harmonize when played together. How the melody of a song interacts with the other lines is the focus of Counterpoint.

Counterpoint, in gaming, is a word for the way gameplay develops past optimization by layering interactive elements into a single gameplay experience. When each layer influcences, interacts, and enhances the functions/gameplay of each other layer the gameplay emerges into a medium of expression that reflects the individuality of a player and the dynamics that reflect the complexity of the world we live in.

A measure of how the changes in the method of input are paralleled with the action in the game according to the form of the mechanic. If you quickly press the green button on your controller, does the game quickly press the button on the screen? If you hold the button on your controller, is the button on the screen held down as well?

An measure of how the game world responds to the action. According to the form of the game world and the mechanic, does the world react realistically? What is the extent of the properties of the mechanic? Are the reactions to the mechanic special cases or can the resulting actions continue to effect the game world?

Like Marxist criticism, the most successful Feminist critique of a game involves analyzing how the range of player functions that affect female characters directly or indirectly reveal the operations of patriarchy. When the player is encouraged or forced to play in a way that depicts men as strong, rational, protective and women as weak, emotional, submissive, and nurturing, then the game can be said to support and reinforce patriarchal genders roles and ideologies. Patriarchal values work to oppress women, and all feminist theory and criticism works to promote women‘s equality. A Feminist analysis can become more complex when finding examples of actions toward women if a game doesn’t feature any women or the game allows for limited interaction with women. Writing essays about such games often leads to finding evidence by absence. In other words, a Feminist critic’s central piece of evidence may be what can’t be done to women instead of what can.

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flow

How a game accelerates or creates forward momentum. This factor of gameplay isn't necessarily about speed. More specifically, it looks at how a game's interactions feed back into the player's options/experience like a snowball rolling down hill.

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folded level design

Level design that resuses a space with the second use containing an extra layer to the gameplay that builds on the knowledge and experiences established on the first layer.

Form fits function is a powerful game design principle that has powered many of Nintendo's greatest games. Using familiar visuals, games can use their form to communicate to the player. If there is a ball resting on a tee and the player avatar has a golf club in their hands, they better be able to swing the club and hit the ball. Otherwise, why put such things in front of the player in the first place? Keeping the form true to the functions and limits of a game creates the cleanest most easily enjoyable experiences.

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function creates form

When a game's mechanics inspire, shape, and define the creation of ancillary parts of a game. ie. story, setting, premise, characters, music, audio

Interplay is the back and forth encouragement of player mechanics between any two elements in a game. Put simply, interplay is where actions and elements in a game aren't means to an end, but fluid opportunities that invite the player to play around with the changing situation.

A measure of the degree to which input method matches the form of the game. If there's a green button on the screen, and a green button on your game controller, the form of the game is liked to the input of pressing the green button on the controller.

Like Psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist criticism can seemingly critique a game by looking solely at a its fiction. However, both of these critical modes, in relation to videogames, achieve a deeper, more profound level of analysis when the elements of interactivity between the game and player are taken into consideration. Many Marxist critics of literature believe that film, literature, art, music, and other forms of entertainment such as videogames are the primary bearers of cultural ideologies. While we’re being entertaining by these medias, our defenses are lowered making us all the more susceptible to ideological programming. A Marxist critic of videogames looks for how a game supports or condems capitalist, imperialist, or classist values. Perhaps the best and most obvious place to look toward in games is the role and function of money. Some games represent money with actual U.S. dollars or some other form of real world currency. Others use fictional currency from bell, to gil, to star bits, or even points. What the player can purchase, how these items or services function, and how the money circulates within the game world all become important areas of analysis.

"New Classical criticism focuses on identifying a game's primary function/action that sums up all of the player's actions, functions, and abilities into a single expression. This expression can be thought of as the interpretation of the game or what the gamer is actually doing when he/she plays. Sometimes the primary function can be encapsulated in a single word. For example, the primary function of the Super Mario platforming series is "jump". After the primary function is identified, the New Classical critic then looks at a game's formal elements to analyze how they promote the primary function. The formal elements include Sound, Music, Art style, Story, Graphics, level design, enemies, etc. Because the New Classical critic privileges interactivity over passivity (especially when focused into a limited number of rules and actions), such a critic is only concerned with how these elements shape the gameplay experience, and assumes that any formal element in a game is only meaningful when it supports the primary function and exists in a lower state of priority to that function. In other words, elements like story can't be more stressed and more important to a game than the gameplay. Even if a game is designed according to the conventions and assumptions of Western game design, it can still be critiqued in the Classical mode."

A type of multi-fold level design where the creases and layers are so flexible and/or dynamic that considering the possibilities within a single level are interconnected and complex. Considering the shape created from a multi-fold level is similar to observing an origami figure.

For those who aren’t careful, a Psychoanalytic critique of a game appears to only be concerned with the fiction of a game and the relationship of the characters. Unless the game is Psychonauts, most games seem to have little to nothing to do with the human psyche. Neglecting how the game fiction and the gameplay (or game rules) come together to create the Psychological work in a game is a common pitfall. Another easy pitfall is to get wrapped up in Psychoanalyzing the developers of the game, or what may be infinitely more embarrassing, accidentally analyzing one’s own psychological state while trying to pass it off as an analysis of the game. Though it is true that the fiction of a game is an important part of any Psychoanalytic analysis, the gameplay is where the most profound sources of material because the interactivity of the game can influence and transform the player in more powerfully subtle ways than a passive medium.

The set of mechanics that do not make up the set of primary mechanics. These mechanics usually aid and help shape the primary mechanic.

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sections (sub-sections)

All games can be broken down into sub-sections or sections. Whether a game is broken down by rooms, loading sections, cut scenes, stages, levels, rounds, or turns, if a game has a mechanic that is repeated, then it can be divided into sections.

Structures are probably the most recognizable feature of videogames. Because structures create the foundation for the game rules and player to learn these rules, analyzing structure develops a clearer insight into how a game works at its core. We're all familiar with the structures of genre. Any gamer can instantly recognize a first person shooter like Halo from a puzzle game like Tetris. Each gaming genre has a certain look to it that is the result of the gameplay structures. Like with any genre, the degree to which the conventions are followed or deviated from varies greatly from game to game. Recognizing a game's structure is an acute way of talking about how a game works in or outside of its genre.

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suspension

In counterpoint, when a game element or game idea is offset form the established pattern of game ideas to create scenarios where the element/idea can carry over and influence other game ideas.

...about Critical-Gaming

We have come to a point where how we talk about video games is insufficient in expressing how we feel and think about them. With each year comes increasingly complex games, yet we are still, for the most part, writing and talking about games on a shallow consumer level.

It is time to start thinking and writing critically about games. However, before we can do this, we must approach gaming from a critical mode or mindset. To do this, we must first understand of how the different parts of a game work together (game design). Unfortunately, many of the who have experience in this area spend their time making video games. Beyond that, the body of knowledge that does exist is scattered at best. For this reason, it is hard for a thorough understanding of game design and critique to become widespread.

I have started this blog in efforts to inform both gamers and non-gamers of the complexities of gaming and how it compares to any other art form (music, literature, movies). Using literary critical theory and music theory as a starting point, I have developed a comprehensive set of critical modes for video game critique. By writing in these critical modes, and by critiquing other video game reviews, I hope to raise our understanding and expectations of video game journalism, critique, and even video games themselves.

We already have a loose idea of what it means to be a core gamer. A casual gamer. And a hardcore gamer. I hope with the right mindset, we can become critical-gamers, who don't shun our fellow gamers for thinking deeply about games but embrace the change we wish to see in the world.